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What could have been Sebastian’s swan song has ended happily after all.

The young swan, rescued 14 days ago with a fish hook in his mouth, was returned to the wilds of Toronto Harbour Friday by Doris and KB Bradley.

The boating couple, who personally know many of the birds in the Ashbridge’s Bay area, noticed the injured bird earlier this month. One day, while enjoying the wildlife from the deck of their sailboat at the RCSCC Vanguard Boat Club, Doris attempted to feed Sebastian some bread and he could hardly open his beak to eat.

“I called him Sebastian because it is a regal name,” says Doris, a hospitality professor at George Brown College. “If you saw a swan fly, it’s majestic to see. You can hear the thrust of their wings — they have a wing span that is six feet. Magnificent.”

A first attempt on June 11 by a rescue worker, assisted by Doris and KB, did not net them their prey as Sebastian figured they were up to no good, she says. Every time he saw their small aluminum boat, he’d swim away. Not wanting to ruffle any more feathers, they gave up.

“We were scaring the swan, the ducks and the geese,” she says.

A second attempt the next day, this time with rescue supervisor Andrew Wight, was moved to a dock when Wight concluded Sebastian knew both the boat and his would-be rescuers by sight.

As the Bradleys ducked behind some nearby boats, Wight wrangled the swan into a net and then covered Sebastian with a sheet before putting him in a large cage.

KB, a musician, was impressed with the caring people of Toronto who flocked to Sebastian’s defence when they thought they saw an animal being bothered.

“They were definitely watching and one man yelled out, ‘Hey, stop harassing that swan’. He did not see the words Animal Rescue on Andrew’s back because he was wearing a life-jacket,” says KB. “They were vocal and had their eyes on us.”

Later, two Toronto bylaw officers in the park squawked at the sight of the caged bird before being assured that it was an animal rescue operation.

“People generally assume the worst in defence of the animals, which is right,” says KB, who adds he was thrilled to find there is a non-profit agency that rescues wild animals in Toronto.

Wight, in an interview Saturday while en route to rescue a seagull tangled in kite strings in a tree, says swans are frequently injured by fishing lures and are sometimes hit by cars. There are hundreds of animals from ducks to squirrels recuperating at the Downsview centre after citizens called for their rescue, he says.

Doris, who hugged a grand 200-year-old tree a couple of days ago, says she’s happy so many city slickers see themselves “as custodians of nature. It adds richness to downtown life. I love anything that’s alive. I love people too.”

Once the hook had been removed from Sebastian’s mouth and throat in an operation at the rescue centre, Doris and KB took the swan back to the water’s edge to return him to his natural habitat.

“It took a moment to get him out. Then, he walked out and looked back at us to say, “What the . . . ?” says KB.

Then Sebastian flew the coop.

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